The Reserve Bank of Australia cut interest rates yesterday – to the lowest level since the 1950s – as an emergency measure to combat a failing economy, which is being pushed over the cliff by the excessively tight fiscal policy. This is only the second time that the RBA has altered interest rates during an official election campaign. Last time, they hiked them to the disadvantage of the then conservative government who had claimed interest rates would always be lower under them than under the Labor government. This time they cut them to the advantage of the Labor government (which is also pretty conservative). It gave the news outlets and current affairs programs something to do lat night. The problem is that what they did with the stories illustrated how poor the state of economic debate is in this country. It is always an unfortunate side effect of the RBA decisions that they bring out the economic bogans, even if they dress up a bit to disguise their anti-intellectuality.